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Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons

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Articles 1 - 13 of 13

Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Graph Matching Based Decision Support Tools For Mitigating Spread Of Infectious Diseases Like H1n1, Jomon Aliyas Paul, Kedar Sambhoos Nov 2012

Graph Matching Based Decision Support Tools For Mitigating Spread Of Infectious Diseases Like H1n1, Jomon Aliyas Paul, Kedar Sambhoos

Faculty and Research Publications

Diseases like H1N1 can be prevented from becoming a wide spread epidemic through timely detection and containment measures. Similarity of H1N1 symptoms to any common flu and its alarming rate of spread through animals and humans complicate the deployment of such strategies. We use dynamic implementation of graph matching methods to overcome these challenges. Specifically, we formulate a mixed integer programming model (MIP) that analyzes patient symptom data available at hospitals to generate patient graph match scores. Successful matches are then used to update counters that generate alerts to the Public Health Department when the counters surpass the threshold values. …


Armor All: The Self-Conception Of Private Security Contractors, Volker C. Franke Oct 2012

Armor All: The Self-Conception Of Private Security Contractors, Volker C. Franke

Faculty and Research Publications

Whereas the values, attitudes and motivations of soldiers serving in their countries’ armed forces have been widely studied, to date we know very little about the motivations and self-conception of individuals working for the private security industry. Using data obtained through an online survey, this article explores the values, attitudes and identity of more than 200 private security contractors with law enforcement backgrounds and operational experience with a security firm in Iraq. Contrary to media dominating images of ruthless, money-grabbing mercenaries, respondents in this sample adhered to attitudes and values very similar to those of professional soldiers serving in Western …


Basketball Market Efficiency And The Big Dog Bias, Ladd Kochman, Randy Goodwin Oct 2012

Basketball Market Efficiency And The Big Dog Bias, Ladd Kochman, Randy Goodwin

Faculty and Research Publications

A betting rule is devised to profit from an alleged unwillingness of strong favorites in the National Basketball Association to cover large point spreads. Imaginary wagers placed on NBA underdogs awarded 10+ points by Las Vegas oddsmakers produced a significantly nonrandom wins-to-bets ratio of 53.4 percent during the five consecutive seasons ending in 2007. The failure to generate a W/B ratio of at least 55.4 percent over the 758 games meeting our point spread constraint precludes any claim of profitability.


Manly Mechanicals On The Early Modern English Stage, Keith M. Botelho Jul 2012

Manly Mechanicals On The Early Modern English Stage, Keith M. Botelho

Faculty and Research Publications

A review of the book "Manly Mechanicals on the Early Modern English Stage," by Ronda Arab is presented.


Workplace Deviance And Recession, Aniruddha Bagchi Jun 2012

Workplace Deviance And Recession, Aniruddha Bagchi

Faculty and Research Publications

No abstract provided.


Technology In The Aid Of Delivering Economic Content To Teachers: Virtual Economics V. 3, John R. Swinton, Benjamin Scafidi Jun 2012

Technology In The Aid Of Delivering Economic Content To Teachers: Virtual Economics V. 3, John R. Swinton, Benjamin Scafidi

Faculty and Research Publications

We examine the impact on student achievement of a face-to-face teacher workshop that also provides economics instructors with access to an electronic library of instructional and reference material for their economics classroom—Virtual Economics v. 3 (VE3), offered by the Council for Economic Education. Based on evidence using student and teacher-level administrative data from the Georgia Department of Education and controlling for students’ prior achievement in mathematics, we find evidence that the VE3 workshop experience increases student achievement in high school economics. Our difference-in-differences estimates suggest that teacher participation in the VE3 workshop increases student achievement by 0.061 standard deviations on …


Does Online Cross-Border Shopping Affect State Use Tax Liabilities?, Mikhail I. Melnik, James Alms Jun 2012

Does Online Cross-Border Shopping Affect State Use Tax Liabilities?, Mikhail I. Melnik, James Alms

Faculty and Research Publications

How does online cross-border shopping affect state use tax liabilities? We collect our own data on actual online cross-border shopping transactions from eBay.com, focusing upon a “representative” commodity classification and a “typical” day. These data allow us to examine the extent of actual online crossborder shopping by buyers, and the subsequent potential impact on state use tax liabilities of buyers. Our results indicate that online cross-border shopping is highly prevalent on eBay, with out-of-state purchases accounting for on average 94 percent of the volume of a state’s online purchase transactions. Even so, given the limited volume of eBay-based transactions relative …


Historical Trends In The Degree Of Federal Income Tax Progressivity In The United States, Timothy Mathews May 2012

Historical Trends In The Degree Of Federal Income Tax Progressivity In The United States, Timothy Mathews

Faculty and Research Publications

This study examines how the degree of progressivity of the U.S. Federal income tax evolved between 1929 and 2009. Data from the Internal Revenue Service, U.S. Census Bureau, and Bureau of Economic Analysis is used to construct annual tax concentration curves and income concentration curves. Numerical values of four tax progressivity indices are determined. These values suggests that: (i) the degree of progressivity has varied greatly over time, (ii) taxation outcomes have become more progressive over the past four decades, (iii) the period from the early 1950s through 1974 was one of relatively low progressivity, whereas the period from 1975 …


Immigration Crackdown In The American Workplace: Explaining Variation In E-Verify Policy Adoption Across The U.S. States, Benjamin Newman, Christopher Johnston, April Johnson (Strickland) May 2012

Immigration Crackdown In The American Workplace: Explaining Variation In E-Verify Policy Adoption Across The U.S. States, Benjamin Newman, Christopher Johnston, April Johnson (Strickland)

Faculty and Research Publications

Immigration remains a powerful and recurrent feature of American politics. Of the issues related to immigration, controversy over government policy for controlling illegal immigration occupies a central position in the debate. One increasingly important and prevalent type of control policy that has received little scholarly attention is worksite employment eligibility enforcement, otherwise known as E-Verify Laws. In the present article, we analyze variation in E-Verify policy adoption across the U.S. states, approaching the topic from multiple theoretical perspectives and testing several hypotheses pertaining to policy enactment. Our analysis points to the critical role of proportionate change in a state’s immigrant …


The Interdependence Between Homeland Security Efforts Of A State And A Terrorist's Choice Of Attack, Timothy Mathews, Anton D. Lowenberg Apr 2012

The Interdependence Between Homeland Security Efforts Of A State And A Terrorist's Choice Of Attack, Timothy Mathews, Anton D. Lowenberg

Faculty and Research Publications

Consider a state that chooses security levels at two sites (Targets A and B), after which a terrorist chooses which site to attack (and potentially a scope of attack). The state values A more highly. If the state knows which target the terrorist values more highly, he will choose a higher level of security at this site. Under complete information, if the terrorist’s only choice is which site to attack, the state will set security levels for which the terrorist prefers to attack A over B if and only if the ratio of the value of B to the value …


Comparative Analysis Of Municipal Public Services In Romania And The United States: The Case Of Water And Wastewater Services, Andrew I. E. Ewoh, Lucica Matei Mar 2012

Comparative Analysis Of Municipal Public Services In Romania And The United States: The Case Of Water And Wastewater Services, Andrew I. E. Ewoh, Lucica Matei

Faculty and Research Publications

Some of the most important basic services provided by any level of government are the primary responsibility of municipalities, and urban managers devote more time and attention in making sure that these services are delivered. The availability of public services in any local jurisdiction usually depends on location, history, laws and regulations. Some local governments use alternative service delivery such as public-private partnerships, intergovernmental agreements, and contracting out or privatization. Using an exploratory case study approach, this paper provides a comparative analysis of water and wastewater services in Romania and the United States. Six cities were selected from both countries …


Linguistic Discrimination In Writing Assessment: How Raters React To African American “Errors,” Esl Errors, And Standard English Errors On A State-Mandated Writing Exam, David M. Johnson, Lewis Vanbrackle Jan 2012

Linguistic Discrimination In Writing Assessment: How Raters React To African American “Errors,” Esl Errors, And Standard English Errors On A State-Mandated Writing Exam, David M. Johnson, Lewis Vanbrackle

Faculty and Research Publications

Raters of Georgia''s (USA) state-mandated college-level writing exam, which is intended to ensure a minimal university-level writing competency, are trained to grade holistically when assessing these exams. A guiding principle in holistic grading is to not focus exclusively on any one aspect of writing but rather to give equal weight to style, vocabulary, mechanics, content, and development. This study details how raters react to “errors” typical of African American English writers, of ESL writers, and of standard American English writers. Using a log-linear model to generate odds ratios for comparison of essays with these error types, results indicate linguistic discrimination …


Social Media: Changing Advertising Education, Deborah A. Lester Jan 2012

Social Media: Changing Advertising Education, Deborah A. Lester

Faculty and Research Publications

Creating an academic assignment that closely parallels an advertising agency's real world business experience is a challenge, but social media has destroyed many of the barriers that historically limited media options and completion of advertising plans. Because digital media is cost effective and easily used, commercials, videos, podcasts, and multimedia messaging can be filmed, edited, and broadcast, within the time frame of an advertising course This article presents an applied advertising project that incorporates YouTube, Flicker, MySpace, Face book, Twitter, Linkedin, Ning, Tagged, Google +, and other online social networking sites as the foundation for an integrated marketing communication strategy. …